Director's Anmial Report. ii 



the Oakland Public Museum. I was especially interested in this 

 for I had been repeatedly consulted by the late Curator Mr. C. P. 

 Wilcomb, and I have been regularly invited to attend public cele- 

 brations here. The installation is in a dwelling house not intended 

 for a museum, but it has been very ingeniously adapted to a most 

 pleasing exhibition of what should greatly interest and instruct 

 the public. Especially attractive is the Colonial kitchen and rooms 

 containing furniture and implements of our New England ancestors. 

 I did not expect to see so much on the Pacific Coast or outside of 

 Salem, Plymouth, or Mt. Vernon. A convenient lecture room has 

 been added to the house in which, after an address of welcome, we 

 listened to an interesting account, read by Mrs. D. W. de Veer, 

 of Mr. Wilcomb's work in building up this most creditable museum. 

 The Secretary spoke of the aims of the American Association of 

 Museums, and following this came the election of officers for the 

 ensuing year. 



At 12:30 we were the guests of the City at luncheon in the 

 fine new Oakland Hotel, where we were joined by Mr. Wm. H. 

 Hall, formerly taxidermist in the Bishop Museum. After various 

 speeches, cars were were provided to take us to the Piedmont Art 

 Gallery in a private park, and then on through an attractive 

 country to the University of California in Berkeley, where we had 

 an interesting inspection of museums and grounds and were treated 

 to an exhibition of fire-making and arrow head chipping by a 

 California Indian, Nishi. Our dinner was at the Faculty Club, 

 famous for its hospitality. 



At 7:30, in the Administration Building, we had several inter- 

 esting papers, one by Prof. Homer R. Dill on "Building an Educa- 

 tional Museum as a Function of the University", and I, in response 

 to a request, explained my views of the great educational value of 

 museum work and how members of a staff could easily be trained 

 in photography and drawing and more generally' in the use of eye 

 and hand. I claimed that a museum was not merely to interest 



and in some measure to educate visitors, but was, in fact, a great 



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